


Memory Lane

by FreeTraderBeowulf



Category: The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: Angst, Bisexual, Fluff, M/M, S01E04, The Magicians - Freeform, queliot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 19:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18556717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreeTraderBeowulf/pseuds/FreeTraderBeowulf
Summary: Quentin and Penny go on a walk down memory lane after Quentin begins to question how much of what he felt for Eliot was real.





	Memory Lane

Quentin tossed a nickel back in forth in his hands, making it appear and reappear over and over again. It felt trivial, after all he had real magic. He could make fireworks come from his fingertips. But this was real magic, this is what carried him through the soggy sidewalks of brooklyn. Hour after hour.

Quentin kept doing that magic trick, hour after hour, and nobody noticed.

Quentin finally pocketed the nickel, biting his lip. He saw Penny, finally alone as Julia had drifted off to sleep. The way Penny looked at Julia, it only made it clearer why he had to do this.

"Penny." Quentin whispered low and gravley, "Can we talk for a minute?"

Begrudgingly Penny got up and made his way over to Quentin.

"What is it Coldwater?"

"Can you read my mind?"

Penny took a moment to consider whether or not Quentin was actually serious.

"Why the fuck would I want voluntary immerse myself in that? Who was it again that traded Alice 50 bucks and a White Snakes CD to ward it  _for you_."

Quentin momentary stuttered in disbelief, and made a mental note to ask her later if she had legitimately traded a spell for that.

"Look I have memories, and I'm not sure how many of them or real, or exaggerated. Like I blocked them out and now I can't remember them, or at least the right way."

"Like shit about monster?"

"About Eliot."

"Q Eliot's gone, I know you think he's still alive in there but even if we could, the monster would just possess someone else, that or kill all of us."

It was out of place for Penny, his arch and biting sarcasm wasn't absent, but toned down. Maybe it was something about this Penny, a Penny with whom he didn't have so much history,but he was softer around the edges.

"Look I know you dont wanna do this for me, so do it for the quest. The world, her. Put whatever price you want on it I just need the favor."

Penny exhaled and placed head in his hand. "What do you need me to find?"

"When Julia cast an mind palace kinda spell on me when we were freshman, some serious shit. I would think about things in there, time was kinda exaggerated. I had my memories from real life but they were really, really vivid. I'm not sure how many were real. If you could find them, tell me what did and didn't happen?"

"You're definitely gonna owe me more than a white snakes Cd for this.."

Quentin blinked, and when he opened his eyes he saw himself at a restaurant with his father. He was 15, lanky and barkley filling out his sweatshirts. His hair had been shorn off, his father had insisted. Quentin hated it.

_"Look curly Q.."_

"Your dad calls you curly Q?"

"Just shut up Penny."

_"I get you may not love your life, I'm not always happy with mine either. But perfect lives don't happen. What makes you happy, all that Fillory and Further nonsense, it's not real, it's not a life."_

"So how was this repressed and traumatic?"

_"This way you've been acting, it's unacceptable Quentin. The way you make your mother feel? You love her don't you?"_

_"Of course I do."_

_"Then you need to stop this. What you told Julia, about wanting to kill yourself? Do you know how terrible you made your mother feel, you can't take this all out on her."_

_"I didn't even know Jules would tell her."_

_"You shouldn't be telling anyone curly Q. Just act happy, life's not going to change to you can be lazy, reading your Fillory books until dawn. Just act like nothing's wrong and everything will be okay again."_

_"Yeah Dad, I will."_

_Both of them went back to staring at the table before they started another pointless conversation. It was almost like a test run of this new attitude Quentin was supposed to adopt at the drop of a hat. He did sub par, his father let him know._

"Is this it, the day you wanted to see?"

"One of them."

He could tell Penny was uncomfortable, maybe just because he knew how bad Quentin could get. Or at least he knew now.

"Are you ready for the next one?"

"Yeah." Quentin exhaled.

He watched the scene melt away. He was 17 in his room in Brooklyn. A book case took up the whole wall, stupid drawings of his favorite characters the other three. He was sitting at a plywood desk that had been painted to look more expensive, a camcorder rested precariously on a lamp.

"Okay I did not sign up to watch your sick ass make a porno."

Classic Penny has returned.

"Not what it is."

"Then what is it?"

"A letter, like a video letter."

"You are such a fucking nerd."

_A seventeen year old Quentin decked out in unironic eyeliner and nail polish started to stumble over his sentences._

_"Am I really doing this, I mean yeah I'm in the act of it but why if I can't even say it to myself?"_

"Quentin Coldwater,wearing, eyeliner."

"Actually shut up Penny."

_"Remember when we were 14, and we saw the new x-men but we went without Julia because she was at latin camp? Well it wasn't new I just rented the DVD but new to us at least. You were sitting really close to me, like really close and it wasn't like I hadn't thought if it before cause I mean, your you. I don't even know why I'm talking about this cause you probably don't even remember but it was like 1am and you put your head on my shoulder. I know it didn't mean anything but, it did."_

_He spun around in his chair, biting onto his nails_

_"And yeah it didn't stop, it hasn't I just keep finding more things I love about you and, J know I shouldn't be bitter cause fuck what right do I have to be. Just when you took Julia to prom. I knew in some part it was because of the crush I had on her, one I let myself fall flat on my face for. But all those times we would study together or get donuts on exam days. Every time your face got close and I would hold my breath I convinced myself you felt it too."_

"Quentin why are we here?"

_"Because I'm sorry I loved you James, even if I never got to kiss you."_

As his past self got angrier and angrier, Quentin imagined him melting away. He knew what came next, all that rage.

He knew why he didn't tell his parents, because all of it seemed like revenge against them. Like he was blaming them and they would give up on him for it. It was why he never really felt like their son.

"Can we go one more place?"

Quentin could see Penny wanted to stop, but at this point he didn't much care.

"Yeah, sure. Just a think the thought."

They were back at the cottage, it was right after Quentin had come out of the inception spell Julia had placed on him. Quentin knew this wasn't a memory that was at risk of being tainted by the spell. But it was one he needed.

_Quentin sat on Eliot's bed, drink in hand. He would put bits into Eliot's glass when he wasn't looking though. He would give anything to feel in control right now._

_"I dont think Ill ever be able to sleep again El."_

_"Don't be ridiculous Q." Eliot responded, this voice sauve and sticky. "If there's anything you excel at its oversleeping, you really gonna throw all that away?"_

_Quentin laughed at the joke, it came out like a sob. It was the irony of it, the fact he'd always just been apathetic, wasted potential._

_"How about you sleep here tonight?"_

_"What?"_

_"I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to but, you might sleep better if you know someone's gonna be there to wake you up."_

_"Yeah, I guess I would."_

Everything went black then, Quentin remembered it was because that version of himself had fallen asleep, snd woken up next to Eliot the next morning.

"Quentin, were you and Eliot?"

Solemnly Quentin nodded his head

"But Alice.."

"Yeah I know. I didn't, pretend with her if that's what you're implying but. We fell out of love, once shit hit the fan, we didn't work. Maybe we can, someday, but right now. I want him back."

"So, why did you need me here. Why did you need to see all that shit again?"

"Eliot thought he was, that I didn't love him. That if I had a choice, it wouldn't be to love him."

"But what does some repressed family shit have to do with it?"

"Eliot was the first guy I was ever with. Guess he thought it was just a one time thing. I had to know for sure that all of the stuff before him was true. That I didn't just want love so bad I was willing to find plot holes in my own story. Make myself fall for him."

"So you did, you really loved him?"

"Yeah, for a really long time."

**Author's Note:**

> Hi this is long and I just wanted emo Quentin so dont judge me but the world in walls is one of my all time favs and Quentin should me much more fucking tramatized by it and julia's betrayl but yeah I like to think he thought about Eliot in there or at least his past


End file.
